Chapter 7 - EMMA’S APARTMENT
Emma’s apartment was broken into that night.
Nothing expensive was stolen.
Her television remained.
Laptop remained.
Cash envelope remained.
Only one box was missing.
Noah’s.
Hospital bracelet.
Photographs.
Tiny knitted hat.
And the St. Christopher medal Sofia had given Emma four years earlier.
When Emma saw the empty shelf, she stopped breathing.
Luca stood behind her.
“Emma.”
She did not answer.
“Emma.”
“They took him.”
“What?”
“My son.”
Her voice cracked.
“The only things I had left that still smelled like him once.”
Luca looked at the empty space.
Then something in him changed.
Not mafia anger.
Personal rage.
“Marco.”
“Already checking cameras.”
Emma turned on Luca.
“This is because of you.”
“Yes.”
He did not defend himself.
That made it worse.
“I was invisible before you walked into that restaurant.”
“Yes.”
“I had a job.”
“Yes.”
“A stupid apartment.”
“Yes.”
“A life.”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t.”
Her voice broke.
“You don’t get to say you know.”
Luca stood still.
She wanted him to shout.
Threaten.
Be Luca Romano.
Instead he said,
“You’re right.”
Emma hated how much that disarmed her.
He continued.
“I cannot return the life you had yesterday.”
“But I can find what they took.”
“That doesn’t fix it.”
“No.”
“Then stop talking like everything has a solution.”
Sofia’s lesson again.
Sometimes there is no one to blame.
Sometimes no clean solution.
Luca looked at her.
“I’m trying.”
She closed her eyes.
“I know.”
That was the first moment she touched him.
Not romantically.
Her hand briefly against his sleeve.
Then gone.
Marco found security footage.
A man entered using a copied building key.
Baseball cap.
Face partially hidden.
But one feature visible.
Tattoo behind his ear.
Gianni recognized it.
Stefano Russo.
His supposedly dead brother had entered Emma’s home.
Why steal Noah’s box?
Because of the medal.
The same symbol Sofia hung over Matteo’s crib.
Emma remembered something she had never noticed.
The medal had a tiny seam along the edge.
Not decoration.
A compartment.
Sofia had hidden something inside.
And given it to Emma four years earlier because nobody connected Emma to the Romano family.
A perfect dead drop.
But Sofia could not have known four years earlier she would need evidence against Vittorio.
Unless the medal originally contained something else.
They searched photographs Emma had taken of it.
One close-up showed an engraved code.
314-B
Luca recognized the format.
Safe-deposit boxes at Bianchi Private Bank.
Sofia’s family institution.
Box 314-B had remained unopened for four years.
Stefano stole the medal because he believed the physical key was inside.
He was right.
But he was too late.
Bianchi Bank required two things.
The key.
And biometric authorization from Sofia.
Or, after her death, from Matteo’s legal parent plus the emergency trust protector.
Luca.
And Emma.
Sofia had designed it deliberately.
No Romano alone could open the box.
No stranger alone either.
The next morning, under armed security, Luca and Emma entered Bianchi Private Bank.
The vault officer opened 314-B.
Inside was no cash.
No jewelry.
One hard drive.
One handwritten letter.
And a photograph.
Emma picked it up.
Sofia stood beside another woman outside St. Catherine’s.
Emma recognized the second woman.
Her breath vanished.
“That’s my mother.”
Luca stared.
Emma’s mother, Diane Carter, had died when Emma was nineteen.
Sofia had known her.
The letter began:
Emma, if you are reading this, then I failed to keep our families separate.
May you like
Emma’s hands started shaking.
Their connection had begun long before the hospital chapel.
